While engrossed in another round of Angry Birds the other day, my wife asked why the birds were so angry. I told her at had to do something with stolen eggs. Then I recalled the hilarious video below, which I thought was worth sharing. Enjoy!

03/28/2011

As I walked the long path from King Street to Episcopal High School's Hummel Bowl in Alexandria, I could not help but feel like the pigskin obsessed dads in my favorite high school football movie, "Varsity Blues," watching the QB battle between Jonathon Moxon and Lance Harbor. Of course, Saturday's UVA Football practice wasn't a high school movie and there were twice as many quarterbacks to keep an eye on.

The air was cold, but the atmosphere was light and fun. Many Wahoo faithful game out to watch the football team go through drills for about 90 minutes, followed by 30 minutes of game situation scrimmages. Head coach Mike London greeted the crowd and was received with much enthusiasm. To be honest, it was kind of hard to know what to look for at the practice, having never attended this kind of thing, and with multiple drills going on simultaneously on different parts of the field for the first three-quarters of the event, it reminded me of a three ring circus.

As for the QB situation, Ross Metheny, Michael Rocco, Michael Strauss and David Watford all participated evenly in the drills. Metheny and Rocco looked similar to what we saw last year. Strauss appears to have a very strong arm, and Watford showed good form. From all indications, there is no leading candidate to head the 2011 offense at this point.

At the tailback position, Kevin Parks showed some very explosive speed and Max Milien impressed with some quick steps as well.

The only notable player to spend most of his time on the sideline was Morgan Moses, who biked and observed his teammates on the field.

The scrimmages were set up to run through varying down and distance scenarios. The offense seemed to move the ball fairly well and a few plays would have been broken for major yards. There was also at least one turnover.

It's really hard to know what to look for from the 2011 Cavaliers at this point. The highly touted recruiting class (outside of Watford) was obviously not involved, as those athletes are still in high school. Secondly, if you're an optimist, you could look at every play as being well executed by either the offense or the defense. Lastly, it is not even April and the team is less than 10 practices into the spring campaign so there is a lot of work do be done before the season opens in September.

As far as the event itself, I think it was a huge success for the Hoos. Someone in the stands near me estimated that 1,500 Cavalier fans came to check out the team. Based on raffle prize winners, the crowd came from as far as Richmond, with Northern Virginia, DC, and Maryland also represented of course. In addition, there were many high school coaches on the sideline, checking out the program and getting to know UVA better, which will help with recruiting in the future.

The only sad part of the day was coming to the realization that we are still more than five months away from kickoff of the William & Mary - UVA game at Scott Stadium.

09/11/2010

The first (and hopefully only) sighting of this bizarre creature was at last weekend's Virginia Football season kickoff at Scott Stadium. Some say it is a blue horse. Others think it might be a hippo. Perhaps its one of Barney's illegitimate children. I personally think it might be a mutant sea-monkey.

We already have two perfectly fine versions of our mascot, Cavman, thankyouverymuch.

But why stop there? We had Lil' Hoo, which looked like one of those inflatable Christmas decorations, for a while, and even he made this horse like mascot look good.

Stop the insanity! This thing is more embarrassing than when Cavman ominously got bucked off his horse before a game last year.

Not be too negative on the school and team that I love, here are some improvements that I really enjoyed.

09/01/2010

Check out this great video from the Zac Brown Band and Dave Matthews Band concert in July at Nationals Park. This duet between Zac and Dave on the Willie Nelson cover was definitely a highlight from an overall excellent concert. I just wish they would have segued into a full Lie In Our Graves...

08/26/2010

It amazes me what a difference a personal touch can
make.I recently bought two polos from
different brands online.One came
through the mail in a small white bag, with a shipping invoice and my new
shirt.There is nothing wrong with
this, but it certainly wasn’t anything remarkable either.The product was fine, but the presentation
was lacking.I see this as a missed
opportunity to enhance their brand and establish a relationship with the
customer.

The other polo, from Southern Tide, came in a nice box with
their name and Skipjack logo on it.Upon opening the box, the shirt was nicely wrapped in light blue and
white tissue paper and secured with a logo sticker.Contained under the tissue was my shirt, a
free koozie, a sticker, a small card with the Southern Tide
story, and an invoice with a nice hand written “Thank you” on it, to let me
know my business was appreciated.The
shirt itself included a nice tag and a plastic Skipjack made to look something
like a fishing lure.Overall, it was a
top notch presentation.Not only did I
feel like I had made a good purchasing decision, but Southern Tide spread their
brand through the freebies as I have used the koozie multiple times when out with friends, and put
the sticker and “fishing lure” in my office where they are seen by other
potential customers.

On a social media front, I decided I “Liked” Southern Tide
on Facebook and began to follow them on Twitter.(They probably should have mentioned those
opportunities on their Southern Tide story card in order to encourage more
brand ambassadors.)Online, ST engages
consumers in their brand by having photo contests such as one where fans send
in pictures of themselves and friends “On a Boat.”This Friday they ran a contest where the
first three people to post pictures of themselves in their ST gear would
receive a few free goodies.From what I
could tell, this generated a good amount of buzz and achieved their goal of
increasing the awareness of ST among friends of their fans.

3.Everyone loves something free.The koozie made me feel like my business was
appreciated and has gotten their logo and brand name out to other potential
customers when I’m using it to keep my frosty beverage cool.

4.Use social media to enhance your brand story and
increase customer affinity.The “On a Boat”
contest leverages fans of the brand to put ST in front of their networks.

5.A little southern hospitality goes a long way
towards securing repeat and new customers.

08/20/2010

The much anticipated and much hyped Red Hook Lobster truck debuted yesterday in Washington DC to much fanfare, a huge line, and big juicy hunks of crustacean.

If you've somehow managed to eat lunch at your desk for the past 6 months, you might not have noticed the increasing amount of food trucks/mobile quick serve restaurants that have sprung up around the District. There is an Indian truck, a Cuban/Asian sandwich truck, a mobile cupcake dispenser, a salad truck, pizza on wheels, and more to come. Mobile mac and cheese, anyone? These food trucks offer nice variety for lunch breaks and a touch of surprise as well, as you never quite know where the vendors might be and must use services like Facebook, Twitter and blogs to track down your favorite vendors. I believe the trend started on the West Coast or New York and has gotten so big that there is even a food truck content/reality show on cable now.

Enough with the background, let's get the main event!

The infamous Red Hook Lobster DC truck seemed like it was "coming soon" for months. Part of me thinks it might have been part of brilliant marketing plan to build up demand. Plus it somehow made today's line more bearable. What's an extra 90 minutes when you've been looking forward to something since Snowmaggedon?

A couple of co-workers and I wondered from 15th and L to Farragut Square around noon to be greeted by the longest line I've seen since the Foxfield port-a-potties, circa 2004.

However, we were determined to succeed in our quest for a New England style lobster roll and were pleasantly surprised to find out the Red Hook folks were giving out large plastic cups for everyone to partake in their Maine soda selections. Plus it was a beautiful afternoon to get out and enjoy the scenery and some time away from the office with co-workers.

Ninety minutes after arriving, we were at the truck placing our orders. Lobster rolls are $15 and shrimp rolls are $8. Everyone received free chips today, but moving forward I believe you can upgrade to some kind of combo meal with chips and a whoopie pie. Using an iPad and a small attachment, Red Hook Lobster is able to accept and authorize credit card transactions. Very cool.

We finally retreated to the office to taste our prize. While I definitely enjoyed the experience, I wasn't blown away by the lobster roll itself. It was full of huge, juicy claw and knuckle meat, but I found it a little bland. My co-workers said I was crazy. Take all this with a grain of salt (or Old Bay), as I am certainly no lobster roll connoisseur. I just thought for $15, it was a little void of flavor.

Will I go back? Certainly. Only next time I won't wait if the line is as long, and I'll probably give the shrimp roll a try.

Check them out on Twitter @LobsterTruckDC or on their site at http://redhooklobsterpound.com/

Lastly one suggestion for the folks at Red Hook... maybe try to add a little music to help the time go by. I think Vampire Weekend would be a perfect fit.

05/17/2010

UnabashedlyPrep.com has a great history of Sperry, one of my favorite brands. They're classic and comfortable, two of my favorite things. Interesting to learn that they were originally modeled to grip the ground the way Paul Sperry's dog's feet did. Genius!